Paper Delicacies
by lye tea
Summary: Electricity chewed and bristling. /Eastern Promises/ /Nikolai x Anna/


**a/n: **For LiveJournal's 1sentence community.**  
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**Paper Delicacies**

_1 – Comfort_

There was no comfort left for him, but he still had breath and that jump-jolted frantically, grasping, inside his lungs.

_2 – Kiss_

He kissed her gentle and sweet, and left an aftertaste sharp, cold like metal.

_3 – Soft_

Anna brushed her hair religiously ever night, brushed away the feeling he left snaking through the threads.

_4 – Pain_

Pain came just like everything else: At the most unexpected (and portentous) moment and left the person shuddering for a long-long time, barren.

_5 – Potatoes_

"Like potato sacks," Anna said, "Like she was an animal to be butchered."

_6 – Rain_

Rain fell, rain wept, rain swept up London and held it in her watery love—drops spilling precariously from her lap.

_7 – Chocolate_

Nikolai never sent chocolate; she would not approve (she'd be terrified).

_8 – Happiness_

Happiness was just over the moon, can't reach, can't touch, best leave it where it was—just over the moon.

_9 – Telephone_

The phone rang, and Anna answered, and no one was there (odd, that was how most things were now).

_10 – Ears_

Dangling from her ears were two small diamonds, two miniatures of stars and starlight dancing.

_11 – Name_

"Nikolai Luzhin, please," the name plummeted through hell and out of her mouth.

_12 – Sensual_

Flowers bloom, and flowers bleed, and leave scarlet hues soaked through sheets.

_13 – Death_

Kirill's death felt like a savage slap, smarting across his face before the final blow actually hit, and Anna sighed (thinking she understood perfectly).

_14 – Sex_

Sex and lies were one and the same (so were women and whores).

_15 – Touch_

She hated his touch, inside-bolted when his hand reached for her cheek (felt like the world was slipping away, dank and black).

_16 – Weakness_

There was a weakness in Nikolai's bones, and along she came driving the needle home.

_17 – Tears_

Crying does nothing, she had learned, if only the tears turned to bullets, that would have done _something_.

_18 – Speed_

"A need for speed?" she joked, and Nikolai never smiled (English humor was very bizarre).

_19 – Wind_

Is wind, is gone, is riding along cloud nine—gone with the wind—or something like that.

_20 – Freedom_

When Semyon went to prison, Nikolai was liberated and was incarcerated and this time, someone else held the key.

_21 – Life_

Life goes by when no one's watching, evaporated in a second with hungering hands and frozen feet shuffling behind.

_22 – Jealousy_

She's not jealous, she told herself, it's natural (him and that fourteen-year-old girl kissing).

_23 – Hands_

Hands came down to her neck like two large vises, clasped around her throat and whispered: I Love You.

_24 – Taste_

The flavor goes sour after the first night, and on the second, it's just bland.

_25 – Devotion_

Devotion to family, devotion to The Family, he explained, there was a crucial difference.

_26 – Forever_

Forever danced along in chains, bruised and matted, a prisoner's tale because forever fastened them together like two animals to be slaughtered.

_27 – Blood_

Cold blood, sang-froid, was on her hands from the moment they met, and now, she's responsible too—and now, she's going insane too.

_28 – Sickness_

In London, there are whores and queers, and a sickness half-loose restrained and cutting (jagged) fingers off.

_29 – Melody_

Russians appreciate good music, and a sweeter melody cuts chasms into heart, and so, when Nikolai asked her to play something (eyeing the piano expectedly) Anna blushed and said, "I'm only half Russian."

_30 – Star_

A star is only bright when the sky is dim, otherwise, it's no star at all.

_31 – Home_

"Home is sacred," she said, "If you say so," he said and left (her standing alone).

_32 – Confusion_

Anna was never confused; Anna lived as a chameleon, shape-shifted and thrived and tucked understanding down.

_33 – Fear_

"I'm afraid," she confessed, to which he replied, "I know, isn't that funny?"

_34 – Lightning & Thunder_

Thunder came after because it was slower, Anna came first because she was faster, and Nikolai laughed—as was expected, and second.

_35 – Bonds_

Bonds shatter asunder and there's no repairing them whole, and so, they parted and left no rue in the wake, left with good intentions and blank and erased.

_36 – Market_

"They sell dead fingers in that market, souvenirs; would you like one?" and she shuddered in the sultry heat.

_37 – Technology_

Technology was a curse, like their love, left to die and plucked off (ephemeral), left to wait for a better version coming.

_38 – Gift_

They were a gift, her hair and head, for him and he cringed.

_39 – Smile_

Smile for the baby, smile for the world, bear up, face up, grin and laugh everything off (even when infinity hurts).

_40 – Innocence_

She was innocent once, or something like that; he was always not-innocent too, and together (somehow) it worked.

_41 – Completion_

Sine is to cosine, as old is to new, as her to him—and dead to alive.

_42 – Clouds_

The clouds gathered overhead, cast down shadows running finger-thin and bruised in black and bluish-gray, dusty and ashy, they looked up and fire rained down.

_43 – Sky_

You can stretch your arms and hug the world, anyone can, she once said, but only if you have nothing else to lose.

_44 – Heaven_

Heaven bleeds, heaven dies, Anna learns: There is no heaven after all, made fake-take lies and rouge (like that on a prostitute).

_45 – Hell_

Hell was real, and fun, and hell was being with him.

_46 – Sun_

The sun flared and quelled and flared again, and this time she could feel the solar insurrection coming down to engulf and take her away.

_47 – Moon_

Moon and Selene are two names the same, too bad, Anna sat under them forever and more and never discovered what was so great (about _him_).

_48 – Waves_

Magnetic fields came in waves, attraction and repulsion, one after the other—this, she knew all too well, this she experienced with Nikolai's kisses tearing her skin.

_49 – Hair_

Strands are falling, strands are burning, wispy and intangible like a child.

_50 – Supernova_

"I can make you anything you like, any delicacy at all, like a supernova—that good" (out of impossible, paper, empty, and nil, like her plus him divided by zero).


End file.
